Bourne again

Whatever happened to the good, honest practice of sticking numerals after a sequel’s title to indicate what number it was in the series? I grew up in the days of Jaws 2, Superman III and Police Academy 7 and, whatever the shortcomings of those pictures, at least you knew where you stood. Generally speaking, the higher the number, the worse the film in question was likely to be.

You wouldn’t know it from the title, but The Bourne Ultimatum is actually the third outing for Jason Bourne, the Bond-like character played by Matt Damon. The word ‘ultimatum’ is cunningly chosen in that it carries the suggestion that this may be the final part of the (God forgive me) Bourne trilogy, without in any way guaranteeing it. Unsuspecting punters may think, ‘Well, I’ve seen the first two, so I might as well find out how the story ends’ — but, if so, they’re going to be disappointed. The Bourne Ultimatum took over $70 million in the US in its opening weekend, proving that the law of diminishing returns doesn’t apply to this particular sequel (at least not in financial terms). I fear the series will stretch on and on: The Bourne Infinitum.

The reason Hollywood film-makers have abandoned the practice of calling sequels by their proper name is that they want audiences to think they’re creative artists rather than shameless hacks — and The Bourne Ultimatum is shot through with this yearning for respectability. Paul Greengrass, the director, is a Cambridge-educated documentary-maker who, among other things, ghosted Peter Wright’s Spycatcher, and he brings a patina of left-wing high-mindedness to the proceedings. As with The Bourne Supremacy, which he also directed, he relies on many of the techniques associated with cinéma verité, such as the use of hand-held cameras, and he has tried to shoehorn in a critique of the CIA’s more questionable activities — in this case, the policy of ‘extraordinary renditions’.